This Tuesday file photo provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections shows Bill Cosby, after he was sentenced to three-to 10-years for sexual assault.

This Tuesday file photo provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections shows Bill Cosby, after he was sentenced to three-to 10-years for sexual assault. (Pennsylvania Department of Corrections via AP)

Bill Cosby went to prison this week. Almost incomprehensibly, Cliff Huxtable, Chet Kincaid, Alexander Scott, and childhood friend Fat Albert joined him. Along with the brilliant young comic who made us laugh at Noah and the challenges of parenthood, they vanished among the incarcerated and conveniently forgotten. Perhaps we’ll remember them on some future anniversary of this climactic week in the #MeToo era.

Of all this story’s perplexities, Cosby’s steadfast claim of innocence may top the list. Sixty women accused him of sexual assault and more than a dozen testified during his trial. He denied everything, called them all liars. The whole tale reads a like a sexual-misconduct-themed Groundhog Day script that replays continually. Women come forward to tell of being harassed, violated, assaulted. Invariably, men say it never happened, the women are liars. Fur flies. Some men walk. A few go to prison. Others, even “good guys” like Garrison Keillor, Al Franken, and God knows how many pastors and priests, simply disappear from public life. Whether toward jail or mere anonymity, they all exit declaring their innocence.

The high-stakes reenactment before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week included unusual wrinkles, though none unique. Judge Kavanaugh initially allowed as how he did and said some foolish things in his youth, although nothing so serious as his accusers allege, but once the hearing commenced, he lashed out at accusations as symptoms of “a national disgrace.” He is the victim, not the women.

Some observers, senators among them, trotted out the “boys will be boys” defense and scoffed at condemning things a youngster did 30 years ago. If people in prison follow the news, some of those tried as adults for crimes committed while still juveniles will rightly wonder where these defenders hid out when they stood trial. If no one cares later on what awful things people did as students, why bother prosecuting young people for anything, especially alcohol-fueled sexual misconduct?

The president expressed great sympathy for his Supreme Court nominee, since he, too, has faced so many accusations — all of them lies. And this from a man whom we all heard boast in an audio recording how gleefully he engaged in the same, ugly violations lately alleged against Mr. Kavanaugh.

Whom do we believe? Obviously, innocent people get accused. False accusations have led to horrific consequences, as they did, for example, in the cases of countless lynchings in past generations after the mere suggestion that a black male had behaved dishonorably toward a white female. We all have inclinations, perhaps biases, toward believing some folks more than others. Given my background, I tend to trust law school professors and psychology scholars because I have never known one who would fabricate a bogus sexual assault allegation just to derail someone’s career. I tend to believe judges, too, although the older I get, the more I recognize how much harmful conduct privileged people like me, a white male, have gotten away with in the course of western history.

No matter how the current drama plays out, the most important conversations about credibility and sexual assault these days are taking place around dinner tables and in automobiles where teens are processing all this with their parents. Most especially, when high school girls divulge the pressures, indignities, and assaults of varying degrees they endure every week at school, they deserve our trust and careful listening. Our sons need a trusting ear, too, along with some practice at listening to their sisters and mothers tell what it’s like to feel humiliated, threatened, and terrified when facing a predator, no matter how innocent he looks, alone.

Fred Niedner is senior research professor and associate director of the Institute of Liturgical Studies at Valparaiso University.